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Tag: climate change

Stephen Colbert has mocked President Donald Trump’s claim that he has a “natural instinct for science” with a sketch pouring scorn on his alleged ignorance of climate change.
“I have a natural instinct for science, and I will say that you have scientists on both sides of the picture,” President Trump said to the Associated Press in a Tuesday interview.

Colbert joked:

After a year of massive storms causing untold damage, and our glaciers just shrinking in every direction, Trump was still ambivalent on the concept of climate change. He told the reporter, “You have scientists on both sides of the issue.” That is true, there are scientists on both sides. On one side, all the scientists. On the other, one guy who runs a blog called RealTrueAmericanScienceEagle.jesus.

Though his reliably partisan audience found the sketch uproariously funny, the joke was really on Colbert: it showed that Trump knows more than he does about climate change.

Sean Astin — the actor still probably best known for playing furry-footed hobbit yokel Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings— has berated his fans for showing insufficient zeal on climate change.

“When I mention a Pro-Climate Candidate like @ReneeHoagenson and only 90 of my 330,000 followers “like” comment & retweet, I get pretty ticked off. Do you all know who she is? Is her opponent a Climate-supporter?” the Rudy star tweeted. “Laziness and irresponsibility exists on twitter & that means YOU.”

When I mention a Pro-Climate Candidate like @ReneeHoagenson and only 90 of my 330,000 followers “like” comment & retweet, I get pretty ticked off. Do you all know who she is? Is her opponent a Climate-supporter?Laziness and irresponsibility exists on twitter & that means YOU.

President Donald Trump aced his cross-examination by Lesley Stahl on climate change on 60 Minutes.

Even left-leaning Variety has grudgingly admitted: “60 Minutes was outmatched by Trump.”

The more sympathetic Climate Depot, meanwhile, has fact-checked the president’s climate remarks and found them to be “scientifically, politically and economically accurate.”

President Trump to 60 Minutes: “I think something’s happening. Something’s changing and it’ll change back again. I don’t think it’s a hoax. I think there’s probably a difference. But I don’t know that it’s manmade. I will say this: I don’t want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs … I’m not denying climate change.”

Reality Check: President Trump is frankly giving his assessment of man-made climate change and his understanding is in agreement with some very high profile scientists. Trump has been remarkably consistent with his climate views, demanding that the “The Nobel committee should take the Nobel Prize back from Al Gore” in the wake of the Climategate revelations in 2010.

In its latest hysterical bulletin, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has urged that we need to spend $2.4 trillion a year between now and 2035 to avoid the potentially catastrophic consequences of ‘climate change.’

But the truth is that ‘climate change’ – at least as perceived by the IPCC – is bunk and all that expenditure (which, added up, amounts to a sum greater than the entirety of global GDP) would be a complete waste of money.

Or, as Professor Richard Lindzen, arguably the world’s greatest expert on the subject rather more elegantly put it in a lecture in London last night:

Actor Harrison Ford has called out “people who don’t believe in science or, worse than that, pretend they don’t believe in science” and claims that we are “shit out of time” to save the planet from global warming.

The Star Wars and Indiana Jones star, according to reports, didn’t actually mention President Donald Trump by name but made it clear who the target of his politically charged remarks were directed at.
Ford assumed his left-leaning audience of eco-campaigning elites at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco were probably going to work out his subtle hint, when he urged “For God’s sake, stop electing leaders who don’t believe in science.”

Climate change has been a difficult subject for the BBC, and we get coverage of it wrong too often. The climate science community is clear that humans have changed the climate, but specifically how is more difficult to evidence. For instance, there is very high confidence that there will be more extreme events – floods, droughts, heatwaves etc. – but attributing an individual event, such as the UK’s winter floods in 2013/2014, to climate change is much less certain.

We must also be careful to distinguish between the statements. For example: “Climate change makes this kind of event both more frequent and more severe,” and “Climate change caused this event”. The former uses previous scientific evidence to say ‘it is likely’ the event is the result of climate change, whereas the latter may be making an assertion without the proof to back it up.

What’s the BBC’s position?

Man-made climate change exists: If the science proves it we should report it. The BBC accepts that the best science on the issue is the IPCC’s position, set out above.

William Happer, a Princeton atomic physicist and prominent skeptic questioning whether humans are causing rapid climate change, is joining the National Security Council as senior director for emerging technologies, according to NSC officials.

Happer, 79, is an emeritus professor of physics at Princeton who served in the Department of Energy under President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s. He did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

This will be both a tremendously sensible appointment and a superb piece of trolling by the president.

Viewers complained the advert for its Climate Neutral Now scheme appeared to mock green lifestyle choices and downplay the urgency of the climate challenge.

Published on Facebook and Twitter, the video struck a jokey tone, showing a man trying to give up his car, flights, steak and even breathing to cut his carbon footprint.

“OK, we know that’s slightly impractical, so here’s the real solution,” said the narrator, directing viewers to a revamped website where they can pay to cancel emission reduction credits issued through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

Yet another Arctic expedition to raise awareness of “global warming” has been frustrated by unexpectedly large quantities of ice.

This time the climate chumps were a party of scientists, students and filmmakers from the University of Rhode Island’s Inner Space Center (ISC) sponsored – your tax dollar at work – by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

But now the ship has been damaged after becoming grounded in the ice and its passengers have had to be rescued.

Anthony Watts has been documenting their sorry progress.

First the early optimism of what sounds very much like another politically correct brainwashing exercise for impressionable students:

A two-hour, ultra-high 4K definition television documentary by the onboard film company David Clark, Inc. will air in 2019.

“It is important for people everywhere on Earth to understand how this region affects all citizens. The region’s meltwater, water circulation, and flux of greenhouse gases between the ocean and the atmosphere are impacting wide-scale environmental and climatic changes, including how these changes affect people and wildlife diversity,” says NPP principal investigator and project director Gail Scowcroft.

“The project’s natural and social scientists will engage a group of university students in hands-on research, as the team addresses important research questions. In addition, diverse audiences will be reached through real-time interactions from sea, a two-hour documentary, and related events. The NPP will provide a visually stunning and historically poignant platform from which diverse audiences will experience this innovative expedition.”

Mmm! Can’t wait to be joining the “diverse” audiences who get to watch the movie.